..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page    The Desert Island    Copyright Notice
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Jeff Beck: Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s

Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live
Released: 1976
Label: Epic Records
Time: 44:29
Producer(s): Jan Hammer
Appears with: The Yardbirds, Rod Stewart
Category: Rock
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Purchase date:  2001.08.21
Price in €: 11,55
Web address: www.jeffbeck.com

 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Freeway Jam (Middleton) - 7:21
[2] Earth [Still Our Only Home] (Hammer) - 4:34
[3] She's a Woman (Lennon/McCartney) - 4:25
[4] Full Moon Boogie (Goodman/Hammer) - 6:07
[5] Darkness/Earth in Search of a Sun (Hammer) - 7:52
[6] Scatterbrain (Beck) - 7:26
[7] Blue Wind (Hammer) - 6:20

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


JEFF BECK - Bass, Guitar, Sound Effects, Special Effects

Jan Hammer Group:
JAN HAMMER - Synthesizer, Percussion, Piano, Drums, Keyboards, Electric Piano, Timbales, Vocals, Moog Synthesizer, Engineer, Performer, Remixing
STEVE KINDLER - Synthesizer, Guitar, Violin, Rhythm Guitar
FREEMAN - Electric Piano, Timbales, Vocals, Moog Synthesizer
FERNANDO SAUNDERS - Bass, Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Vocals, Harmony Vocals
TONY SMITH - Drums, Vocals

DENNIS WEINREICH - Engineer
TOM WERMAN - Executive Producer
DENNIS WEINRICH - Engineer, Remixing
MARK WILDER - Digital Remastering for CD
JOHN BERG - Cover Design
LARRY YELEN - Cover Photography
HUE AND EYE - Back Photography
JOYCE MCGREGOR - Lettering

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1977 LP Epic 34433
1977 CD Arista ESCA5069
1976 CD Epic EK-34433
1976 CD Epic PE 34433
1977 LP Epic 34433
1977 CD Epic OE 34438
1977 CS Epic 34422
1991 CD Epic 34433
1976 CS Epic PET-34433



Jeff Beck toured to promote Wired, backed by a jazz-fusion group led by synthesizer player Jan Hammer. This straightforward live souvenir combines songs from Blow by Blow and Wired, plus a few other things, and while it features typically fiery playing from Beck, the backup is a bit too heavy-handed and the occasional vocals (by Hammer and drummer Tony Smith) are embarrassing.

William Ruhlmann
All-Music Guide, © 1992 - 2001 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



In 1969, Miles Davis was looking for a way to sell more albums. So the jazz trumpeter delved into rock and R&B on Bitches Brew. When his record sales promptly increased, fusion was born.

Eight years later, the genre is having an identity crisis. Once, pegging fusion was easy: it was the rigorously creative effort of Miles Davis, his former sidemen (Tony Williams, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Josef Zawinul and Wayne Shorter) and a San Francisco-based band, the Fourth Way, led by pianist Mike Nock. These days, though, fusion has diffused; within its extremes of thoughtless, schlocky grafting (e.g., Stanley Turrentine over strings and a funky drummer) and "serious," often ponderous composition and orchestration (the ECM school), there's mostly unfocused music.

Fusion musicians don't seem to be bothered. For most of them, "fusion" is simply a marketing tool, a convenient critical invention, nothing real enough to have actual implications. Which makes sense, considering the form began less as an art than as a way to make money, and continues in this reactionary vein: the music Davis created was still way above the common denominator so, many exjazzmen, seizing their big chance to stop scuffling, have eagerly gone more reactionary. (Also, because they are almost exclusively tied to major commercial labels, fusioneers constantly risk being told their work's not marketable enough, a kind of pressure that doesn't aid artistic surety.)

Worse, many fusion players embrace diffusion, claiming that labels—like "fusion"—only inhibit artistic conception. Well, it's true much of the best fusion was made when the genre was too young to be called anything. But it's also true that much subsequent fusion music pales in comparison, as even those who make it admit. Maybe, in this case, freedom spells flaccidity. And maybe a refocusing of the genre, a turn back to the beginning, is in order.

To my ears, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, by Chick Corea and Return to Forever, has "heightening" and "tension and release," the key elements of fusion quality, in spades. Every cut proceeds as a series of small, jazz-based structural twists—time stops, coyly repeated riffs, the rhythm section dropping out momentarily, the melody changing completely and abruptly. And each twist intensifies the album's constant rock-infused energy, setting it up tensely, letting it go, more so than if a rock band just laid out the same feeling without embellishment. The result is heightened rock — speaking purely musically, since fusion's lack of lyrics deprives it of a dramaturgy. But, using similar instrumentation, fusion records give us varying numbers of aural climaxes per song, while ZZ Top and James Brown get us off only once. (And in other ways, of course, fusion is also heightened jazz.)

Sad to say, RTF's subsequent LPs became so contrived in this direction they lost spontaneity, as did most other fusion artists. After The Inner Mounting Flame, the Mahavishnu Orchestra became arty and mystical; after the first cut of Spectrum, Billy Cobham became aimless. On Headhunters, Herbie Hancock heightened funk; on the albums that followed, he mined it dry. Finally, in the void, Jeff Beck emerged with Wired, which captured the spirit of Hymn but—ironically—from the rock perspective. Of course, Beck's chops aren't that incisive in relationship to jazz-based form, so the charts were simple compared to Corea's—whose wouldn't be? The point was that Jan Hammer's cranked-up Moog and Beck's raving guitar, given even a taste of fusion's structure, turned especially kickass.

Yet Live joins all the other fusion busts. It lacks energy, perhaps because the four direct Narada Michael Walden tunes that worked so well on Wired are replaced by Hammer charts; maybe, too, because Beck doesn't respond as well when the going becomes more complex. But someone, whether it was Beck or Hammer (who produced), just chose the wrong tapes. Instead of the night of shrieking, wailing and ripping I heard in New York, we get singing, sound effects, voice-bag tricks and a general aura of gimmickry.

Which leads us to the Brecker Brothers. Horn bands can especially heighten funk; in their few concert appearances, the Breckers have excited people with punchy little bursts and razor-sharp turns. Additionally, their writing is already marked by an abundance of stop-on-a-dime tricks, breeding grounds for tension and release. Yet their last two LPs contain much uneventful, if commercial, music. I wonder why they don't try harder to make some memorable mass-audience fusion, based on the horn-band experience. Maybe their distinctive musicality, feeling and humor as purer jazz players gets in the way; it carries Don't Stop.

More disturbingly, fusion has developed a "serious" school, involving many somniferous ECM artists as well as some of the ex-Davis players, including former RTF drummer Lenny White. White's two albums are classy, thoughtful packages, extremely confident and competent. But White, fond of writing suites in emulation of classical composers, continues to ignore his real strength, which is fusion-funk. For example, the first two cuts on Venusian Summer, his first album, play uniquely with pulse, accenting it contrapuntally with gritty organ fills so it moves slicker than any backbeat. On Big City, the final track—a jam featuring Brian Auger and guitarists Ray Gomez and Neil Schon—has a smoking beginning but ends after seven minutes with a too ethereal Bennie Maupin soprano solo. It doesn't build—through horn fills, more guitar battling, drum-keyboard tradeoffs—as it should. Elsewhere on this highly eclectic record, there's an overwhelming precision of "creativity" that's enervating. I wish White would play funk and leave worrying about Varese to musicians who record in Oslo.

Somewhat sadly, the best record of the four reviewed here is by the least talented artist. But Lonnie Liston Smith, another ex-Miles sideman, avoids pretension and understands tension (not to mention release). The result is a totally unified, original approach to fusion. Once an angular, modal piano stylist, Smith now writes soft R&B tunes that rely on the whimsical beauty of minor-key chordal situations. (On Renaissance, they're especially enhanced by veteran arranger Horace Ott.) Beneath Smith's melodies chug vaguely danceable beats; the juxtaposition creates its own kind of heightening. On "Starlight and You," Smith's brother Donald contributes a stylish yet poignant near-falsetto vocal; while we soar on the bliss of his cool effort, Lonnie intensifies our feeling with some in-the-groove piano comping. Its structure showcases the tension-funk and lets it go, ever so slowly.

Fusion needs to become more aware of its strengths. While some may claim that artists can't become sufficiently detached from their music to regard what makes it tick, mature artists at least have a sense of their medium's boundaries and challenges. In that sense, unfortunately, most fusion musicians are still immature. (RS 241)

MICHAEL ROZEK - Rolling Stone



I agree with earlier review of Hammer trying to outdo Beck
It is a well done fusion recording that should have been labled the "Jan Hammer group live" because, with the exception of 'freeway jam', Jeff Beck is basically a side guitarist.
Thus if you are looking for the live equivilant of 'Blow by blow' or "Wired', look elsewere.
Pitty they don't remix this recording and increase the volume of the guitar playing and decrease the volume of the keyboards.
If they did, then it would probably be worthy of of trying to sell the recording with the Jeff Beck name attached to it.

S M , April 16, 2000



Stunning live jam....

This album has some of the most incredible live guitar playing I have ever experienced. The jamming between Jeff and Jan is beyond words. The solos by Jeff on Freeway Jam, Blue Wind and Earth will never be matched in a live situation for ingenuity, gut feel, sonic boom tonal purity and for pulling every last sound out of a Stratocaster. I listen to all types of music and all types of guitarists, but this album displays the electric guitar and amplifier in a manner that goes beyond hearing, it's surreal......

Gary Hostetler (glh@ipass.net) from Raleigh, NC , July 15, 1999



Serious Beck/Hammer Fan(s) Fare

I confess this is a sentimantal favorite and not quite what you might expect or demand from the pinnacle that is 70s-era Beck, but still WELL worth the buy. Hammer's "Darkness/Earth" is a fantastically done Hammer track (and one of my all-time favorite live tunes)...followed by "Air Blower/Scatterbrain," one of my all-time favorite Beck song(s) which is done surprising justice, and frankly better than I would have expected in a live session (any guitarist who has tried to play Scatterbrain will probably tell you it's not exactly "Little Brown Jug"). In short, if you like 70s era fusion/rock (and Beck and/or Hammer especially), you should really enjoy this...just don't expect (for the most part) to be knocked out.

BR , April 5, 2001



Good live disc...

If I could give it 3.5 stars I would, but I can't, so I'll give it 3. Here's the track analysis: Freeway Jam: This is probably the best song on the album, a good 6 minutes or so of soloing from both Jeff and Jan. Earth (Still Our Only Home): Jeff has a cool part in this song, but the singing is horrible. I can't bear to listen to the singing. Cover your ears. She's a Woman: This version of She's a Woman is very "ska-ed" out, but nonetheless, a pleasure to listen to. Jeff doesn't use the voicebag quite as much as on the album version. Full Moon Boogie: This is a cool song, and the singing isn't quite as bad as on Earth. Jeff pulls out the voicebag again for this song. Jeff is obviously the star of this one. Darkness/Earth in Search of a Sun: Jan really rips out his bag of tricks for this one, and Jeff doesn't have as big of a part. Jan has a solo for the first 2-3 minutes of the song, give it a listen, you might like it. Scatterbrain: Not as good as the album version (as stated in another review), but nonetheless it is pretty cool. Blue Wind: Jeff really attacks his guitar on this one. A good, tight performance too. Sometimes, however, it is hard to tell when Jeff is playing and when Jan is, their instruments sound almost identical. Overall, it is definatley worth 10 bucks, and I wish I could give it 3.5 stars, but I'll settle for 3. Had there have been better singing, the album would probably get 4 stars, but at points the singing is really horrible. Aside from that, it's a solid effort and a good buy.

jbnadia from USA , March 17, 2001
 

 L y r i c s


Currently no lyrics available!

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!